There is little surprise when the Texas Supreme Court issues an opinion for one to find that Texas’ highest Court has struck yet another blow to the rights of Plaintiffs in pursuing their claims for injuries negligently inflicted upon them.  This, again, occurred in the case of Haygood v. Garza de Escabedo, No. 09-0377, 2011 Tex. LEXIS 514 (Tex. 2011).

Justice Hecht, writing for the majority, addressed the “paid or incurred” provisions of Section 41.0105, and the Court struck the manner in which trial courts have been applying Section 41.0105 since that statute was enacted as part of the Texas legislature’s tort reform legislation of 2003.  Justice Hecht noted that the statute purports to limit recovery of healthcare expenses “to an amount actually paid or incurred by or on behalf of the claimant,” but the trial courts have not been uniform in their interpretation of the statute.  Haygood now clearly instructs the trial court judges to limit not just a claimant’s recovery, but also the evidence admitted before a jury to the reduced amounts paid by health insurers or governmental programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Prior to this ruling, which is now significantly changed, juries would tend to use the amount of a claimant’s medical expenses as a foundation in order to award appropriate recoveries for non-economic damages such as mental anguish and pain and suffering.

The court acknowledged this concern, but held that allowing the jury to consider evidence of non-recoverable economic damages leads to confusion which substantially outweighs the relevance of any such evidence.

Their decision can in no way be harmonized with the legislative intent of Civil Practice and Remedies Code §41.0105.  This is pointed out in the dissenting opinion of Justice Debra H. Lehrmann, joined by Justice Medina.  I suppose we are lucky in these days of tort reform to even have two (2) justices out of nine (9) that are unwilling to write new legislation, and that would have at least followed the legislative history to apply this statute, as well as common law of more than One Hundred and Fifty-Seven (157) Years.

The Haygood decision clearly has the potential to significantly impact ALL pending claims where medical bills have been paid, following reductions, by group health insurers or by governmental programs such as Medicare or Medicaid.

Contact Monte J. White & Associates to find out what your rights now are since this decision.

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